


The Gang Saves Charlie

by mymphr



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Canon-Typical Gang Behavior, Gun Violence, Hospitals, Implied Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds, Major Character Injury, Other, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:07:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23376349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymphr/pseuds/mymphr
Summary: Paddy's faces an armed robbery.I did not know how to title this without giving the whole thing away. This is an examination of the gang's dynamics, an excuse to write everyone being nice to Charlie, and a little bit of me throwing a situation at the gang and seeing what might happen.I don't know yet if it'll come up explicitly but know that I always write Charlie as trans and autistic, Dennis as bisexual, and Mac of course as a raging homosexual - and there will b references to both mac and dennis' disordered eating/fucked up body image issues. anyway. enjoy.by the way, ao3 doesn't have an "armed robbery" tag
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

"I just don't get it, dude, it's too many rules." 

"Mac, look, it's simple. No carbs, no red meat, no artificial bullshit, no sugar. Right? And within a couple of weeks, I'm gonna be built like a Greek God, man, just you wait." 

Dennis was stood behind the bar, flexing a little, inspecting his own abs. A few feet behind him, further down the bar, was Dee, absentmindedly cleaning a glass as she watched him talk. Mac was like a confused, curious child, leaning on the bar from where he sat on one of the stools, cold beer between his hands. Charlie was sitting at a table behind him, in deep focus as he picked at a bag of salted peanuts. 

"So… but… okay, so what can you eat?" asked Mac, leaning back, looking at Dennis with a questioning look. Dennis sighed dramatically. 

"Plenty of stuff, dude! Like… I could have… chicken! I can have chicken. Or… an apple -" 

"With the skin off." Mac interjected, matter of factly,

"Right, with the skin off. Or, y'know, like, a… a salad, without any of that fattening dressing, or…" He shrugged. "Look, there's plenty of stuff, okay?" Mac shrugged nonchalantly and sipped on his beer, and Dennis sighed again as he turned to the fridge to grab one for himself. 

"Y'know beer is full of carbs, right?" Dee said smugly, watching Dennis uncap his bottle. He rolled his eyes. 

"Of course I know that, Deandra. That's what all this is for. I'm offsetting my beer intake." He took a sip, looking over at Mac with an eyebrow raise and a smug this-bitch-doesn't-know-what-she's-talking-about smirk. 

"You could just stop drinking beer, fatass." Dee laughed, picking up another glass to clean mindlessly. Dennis slammed his beer down on the bar angrily. 

"And you could stop being such a useless sack of twigs, but some things will never happen!" He cried, grabbing his beer back up roughly as he finished, splashing foam on Mac's shirt. Before he could complain about the beer soaking through onto his chest, Charlie spoke up from behind him. 

"Hey, what are these things again? This shit is… so good, have you all tried this?" He palmed a handful of peanuts into his mouth and crunched down on them as he lifted the bag to inspect it. The others stared at him in disbelief. 

"They're… peanuts, Charlie." Dennis said flatly, tapping his fingers on the bar. The excitement in Charlie's voice grated on him. 

"Peanuts?! Woah, dude, I thought those were the big knobbly ones. And that big peanut guy, with the top hat, right?" He threw another handful of nuts into his mouth and mimed putting on a top hat as the others stayed silent in befuddlement. 

"Yeah, I mean, they break 'em up before they give them to you, man." Mac shrugged, watching Charlie throw nuts into his mouth. 

"Shit, dude. You gotta try this." 

"We've all tried peanuts before, Charlie!" Dennis snapped, and Charlie widened his eyes at him. 

"Alright, man, chill! I'm just saying. They have this, like, flavouring on them, it's crazy, dude!" He grinned as he dropped more into his mouth. 

"It's SALT, Charlie!" Dennis yelled. The others looked at him. 

"It's just salt, okay?" He said again, calmly, glancing at Mac and Dee's expressions, which told him he'd gone too far too fast. They were looking at him like he'd just yelled at his toddler in a public park. Charlie just kept eating his nuts and shrugged. 

Their collectively tiny attention span was quickly snatched away from the peanuts - and the apology that Dennis would probably have been forced to give - as Frank came storming out of the back room holding a stack of paper. 

"Oooh, guys, you're not gonna believe this!" He exclaimed as he sat himself down at the table where Charlie was sat. He looked up and saw the nuts and dropped his papers on the table. "Oh, shit, we got nuts? Can I have some?" 

"Yeah, man, these things are great!" Charlie said loudly with a smile, offering the bag to Frank. Dennis rolled his eyes and chugged his beer. As Frank shoved peanuts into his mouth like a starving boar, Charlie held one up to the light like he was inspecting crystal meth for purity. 

"So, like… does the peanut guy make these, or what? 'Cause that's kinda fucked up, man, I mean -" 

"Frank, what are we not gonna believe, hm? Is it about peanuts? Because if so I don't want to fucking hear it!" Dennis shouted, leaning his elbows on the bar and dropping his face into his hands. He was going to fucking lose it. Dee chuckled. 

"He can't have peanuts, y'all. He's just jealous 'cause he misses that sweet salty taste…" Dee was laughing as she spoke and Dennis swore to himself, the only deity he believed in, that he would not strangle her to death. Not today. She fell silent suddenly, and Dennis lifted his head out of his hands to see why. There was a man standing at the end of the bar. Dennis glanced around at the others, and at the rest of the bar, which was noticeably empty of customers. 

"Uh, hey, man, what can I get ya?" Dennis asked half heartedly, somewhat relieved that the conversation had been interrupted. Maybe, he thought, he should thank the man for preventing a murder. The man stared at him for a bit too long, his eyes wide, hands deep in his jacket pockets. "...can I get you something?" Dennis asked again, turning to frown at the others. Dee shrugged. Dennis turned back. 

"Money. I want your money." The man spoke quietly and quickly, his voice like a silenced machine gun. He had heard the words, but all together they didn't quite make sense in Dennis' brain. He squinted. 

"Money?" He asked, incredulous, as if he needed reminding of the very concept. 

"Your fucking money, dude. Now." The man was shaking. Dennis turned to look at the others again. Mac's eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open gormlessly. Dee looked… nonplussed, almost as if she was glad to see Dennis dealing with this situation. Charlie and Frank looked like they were watching a movie, still munching on peanuts. Dennis supposed he was alone in this, as always, because all of his friends were useless sacks of shit. He sighed, turning back to the man. 

"Look, dude, we don't have any money. It's not on the premises. Sorry, man. I think there's a bank down the street with pretty shitty security." Dennis laughed nervously, turning back to the bar to grab his beer. 

Then the man pulled out a gun. Dennis froze as chaos broke out around him. 

Dee screamed, dropping into a squat under the bar, wriggling between some dirty crates to hide. Her feet stuck out awkwardly, and Dennis wished this wasn't a potential life or death situation so he could make a joke about her gangly legs. But it was, so he didn't. Frank up and ran, straight into the back office, and for a moment Dennis thought he was probably getting his gun, but then he remembered that Frank was a selfish piece of shit and he was probably going to hide or escape with all the money that was, in fact, on the premises. Mac stood up and held up his fists as if he could deflect bullets with a punch, and Dennis wished he had ever hired a real security guard. Charlie jumped up with his hands in the air and his mouth full of peanuts, and Dennis thought it was the fastest he'd ever seen him move. Everyone was yelling, and the man was pointing his gun at all of them frantically. Dennis lifted his hands in the air, shouting over it all. 

"Woah, woah, woah, please! Guys! Everyone calm down!" The yelling slowed to a low rumbling of chatter and the odd whimper of fear from Dee. "Come on. We are civilised adults, right? We can deal with this." He looked the man in the eyes, and all of his confidence drained from him. This man was fucking crazy. That was clear now, as he stood in front of Dennis, gun raised, hands shaking wildly, his eyes wide and piercing. 

"Ah, fuck." said Dennis. 

"Give me your FUCKING MONEY. I will shoot every ONE of you freaks!" The man screamed, waving his gun wildly. 

"Hey, man, he already told you we don't have any money, okay?" Mac finally chimed in, his eyes flitting between Dennis and the gun. Dennis looked over his shoulder at the back room in the off chance Frank was going to come running out and save them. It didn't happen. 

"Open the till, asshole." The man said to Dennis, pointing the gun at him. Dennis backed up carefully towards the till, nodding. He slowly turned to type in the code that would let him enter the till system. As he lowered his head, he saw the man turn in the corner of his eye, swinging round suddenly. 

"Hey! Shitstain! Don't you dare!" The man yelled. Dennis looked up to see Charlie reaching behind him to the table, and then there was a bang. 

As Charlie reached for the peanuts, a bullet passed through his shoulder. He heard the bang first, and then felt the pain, and then through the ringing in his ears he heard the screaming that could have been coming from him or anyone else in the room. He had a handful of peanuts when he looked down at his torso and saw blood, red and bright, soaking through his t shirt. He supposed it must have been his blood. He could feel it dribbling down his chest, warm and wet. 

"Holy shit." He said as his head grew light, and he felt his knees hit the ground. None of this was happening to him, he was pretty sure. This was a fucked up glue induced nightmare, or a bad acid trip, or maybe a prank, and he wasn't slumping down to the floor with a bullet hole in his shoulder. No. Not in real life. 

"Holy shit!" yelled Mac, stepping towards the man with his hands raised. 

"What the fuck?" Dennis said, frozen to the spot, watching Charlie's dirty grey t shirt blossom red, a big bright spot growing from his shoulder out. This was not how today was supposed to go. This was not how any day was supposed to go. He looked at Mac, both of them shaking with adrenaline. Mac clenched his jaw and turned to the man. He grabbed him, trying to kick him in the stomach, but the man pulled away. Mac kept coming at him, arms swinging, and then he felt the gun against his stomach. He felt the man pulling the trigger and he expected an ear piercing bang as pain ripped through his stomach, but it didn't happen, because the gun had jammed. It fucking jammed. 

A wave of adrenaline surged through him like a fucking hit of crack, and he laughed loudly and joylessly as he slapped the gun from the man's shaking hands and onto the floor. He grabbed him by the shoulder but suddenly the man turned and ran for the door. Mac ran after him but tripped, his legs shaky with the adrenaline rush and the terror, and as he scrambled back up to his feet the man ran out of the door. He stood still for a second, bubbling with fury and panic and guilt and adrenaline, and then remembered about Charlie. 

He tumbled down to his knees in the puddle of blood by Charlie, who'd slumped over onto the floor near the stool he'd been sat on. Dennis ran out from behind the bar, his body finally unstuck, and fell down next to Mac. 

"Charlie, dude! Holy shit!" Mac shouted, pushing Charlie's messy hair off his forehead so he could see his eyes better. They were closed, but Charlie grunted. 

"I think I got shot, dude." He said, eyes opening slightly to look up at Mac and Dennis' concerned faces hanging over him. The pain was sharp and constant but he could just about still think, still feel his face, still move. Still feel the shirt wet with blood against his skin. 

"Yeah, you totally got shot, bro! Jesus Christ, dude, we need to get to a hospital!" Mac was getting frantic, full blown panic attack around the corner, so Dennis put a hand on his shoulder firmly. 

"Dee!" He yelled, waiting to hear her clamber out from under the bar. She popped up looking terrified, and when she saw Charlie she screamed. 

"Holy shit!" she shouted, gesturing at Charlie. 

"Yeah, we know! Get your car, make yourself useful. You know how much an ambulance costs." Dee nodded and ran out of the door. Dennis had gone into Problem Solving mode, which was where he felt most comfortable. Everything would be okay, even though Charlie was lying in a puddle of his own blood, because Dennis could solve it. It would all be fine. He looked down at Charlie, swallowing, and gently rolled him onto his back. The blood was still soaking through his shirt, starting to pool on his chest now. Dennis and Mac both grimaced, and Dennis held his hands over the hole in Charlie's shoulder. Charlie looked up at him with panic in his eyes, his face pale and clammy. 

"This is probably gonna hurt, dude, but you're bleeding like crazy, so you have to bear with me." Dennis spoke through his teeth as he placed his hands one over the other on top of the wound. Charlie nodded weakly, and Dennis pressed down, using the muscles in his shoulders. Charlie groaned out in pain, his face twisting, and Mac felt panic in his gut. 

"Holy fuck, you weren't kidding…" Charlie said, quick, choked, breaking off into a pained whine. 

"Wait, man, what are you doing?" Mac asked frantically, his fingers wrapping around Dennis' forearm. 

"You're supposed to apply pressure to wounds, right? That's basic stuff, that's… cable TV stuff, Mac." He sounded angry, but Mac sighed and nodded. Seeing Charlie's face twisted in pain felt wrong, but he trusted Dennis. He had to trust Dennis. 

Dennis just sat there, applying pressure, feeling blood ooze between his fingers, his head empty of thoughts, until he heard a car horn honk outside. 

He realised he didn't know how to get Charlie to the car. 

"Okay, man. Alright. We have to get to the car. Fuck." He looked around as if a stretcher might just appear next to them, and then looked at Mac. 

"Should we carry him?" Looked back down at Charlie. "Should we carry you?" 

"Uh… just… yeah, like, sitting up. King's throne style." Charlie tried to sit up but Dennis was still pressing on his shoulder, and it sent a new hot wave of pain through him. He groaned and fell back against the floor. 

"Alright… shit…" Dennis said, slowly releasing the pressure from Charlie's shoulder. It hurt even worse than when he'd pressed down initially, and Charlie made a noise like he was about to cry, his face white. Dennis' hands were covered in Charlie's blood, which made him feel a little bit sick, but he hooked them under Charlie's shoulders and gently lifted him upright. Charlie breathed deeply, slowly, trying to stop himself screaming, as Dennis hooked one hand under his thigh and one under his armpit. He nodded at Mac, and he promptly did the same on the other side. They lifted Charlie as carefully as they could, but he still yelled out in pain as his shoulder shifted. Dennis realised his jeans were also soaked in Charlie's blood, and he decided that today he would just have to deal with everything being covered in Charlie's blood. They carried Charlie to the front door, and Mac rested Charlie's thigh on his knee as he opened the door to carry him through. Finally, they placed him in the back seat of Dee's car. He slumped down into the middle seat, and Dennis ran round to sit next to him and pressed his hands over the wound again. Mac hopped in the front next to a panicked Dee. They were all quiet, the car rumbling around them, and then Dennis broke the silence with a shout. 

"Dee! Drive! Hospital! For fuck's sake!" 

Mac looked back at him and saw blood smeared on his face, his hair slick against his forehead, and his hands pressed into Charlie's shoulder, and he felt useless. Dennis stared back at him, the cogs turning in his head as Dee pulled away from the bar. 

"Mac." He said, looking back down at Charlie's pale, contorted face. "This is the only time I'm gonna ask this, but take off your shirt. And give it to me." 

Despite everything, Mac blushed. He shoved down whatever odd warm tingling was in his gut, and pulled off his shirt, holding it out into the backseat. Dennis grabbed it, and Mac turned to watch what he was doing. He tore the shirt in half, and Mac let out a small sound in defense of his vintage Metallica shirt, but Dennis looked at him with a clenched jaw, shiny with sweat, blood smeared on his face, and Mac closed his mouth. Dennis pulled apart Charlie's t shirt from the hole where the bullet had torn into him, revealing a bloody mess. Mac grimaced, and Dennis groaned, nauseated as he looked at the hole in Charlie's shoulder, just under his collarbone. But he could deal with this. He could make it okay. He knew what to do. He took a deep breath, gathering himself. Dee took a corner too sharply, and he bashed his head on the window, but he didn't have it in him to yell at her. He leaned forward and pressed the fabric of Mac's t shirt into the wound, pushing it lightly into the hole where the bullet had entered, even as Charlie screamed out in pain and grabbed at his forearms. 

"Dude, shit, what are you doing?" Mac cried, holding onto the car seat tightly. 

"I'm trying to stop the bleeding, man. So he doesn't fucking die." Dennis packed the fabric into the wound and then tied the other part of the t shirt around Charlie's shoulder to hold it in place. Charlie groaned, guttural and weak. 

"We're almost there, alright, everyone stay calm!" Dee shouted, not sounding even a little bit calm, and Dennis rolled his eyes as he watched blood soak straight through his makeshift bandage. They stopped abruptly and when Dennis looked up they were right in front of the ER. Mac hopped out of the car and opened the door behind Dennis. He shuffled out and leaned in to try and guide Charlie out of the car, but he groaned and near enough sobbed, weakly pushing Dennis away. He reminded Dennis of a cat that had been hit by a car crawling away into a field to die, scratching anyone who tried to help it. He was pretty sure he was going to be sick. 

A nurse had wandered over from the entrance, craning his head to see what was going on. Mac turned and waved him over. 

"Oh, man, thank God, our friend got shot -" Mac stuttered, grabbing the nurse by the shoulders. He pulled free and ran towards the car, grabbing a radio from his belt and yelling something into it. Dennis spoke to him for a moment and then stood back, and slowly a swarm of nurses and doctors surrounded them, extracting Charlie from the car and placing him on a trolley. Dee had stepped out of the car at some point, and the three of them were stood in the middle of everything watching strangers maneuver Charlie's floppy limbs onto the trolley. Someone grabbed Dennis as Charlie was wheeled into the entrance. Dee and Mac stood still and silent beside him, watching the stranger's mouth move. Mac cleared his throat and shook his head to try and place himself back in reality. 

"... and, uh, I tried to put pressure on the wound, 'cause that's good, right?" Dennis was speaking frantically to what Mac now assumed was a nurse from the way they were nodding sympathetically at Dennis. 

"He did a great job, dude! Charlie's gonna be fine, right?" Mac spoke too loud, his false enthusiasm thick in his voice. Dennis glared at him, but there was a little relief in his eyes. Relief that he wasn't completely alone. The nurse looked at Mac. 

"Well, hopefully. So long as it didn't hit any major arteries, we should be able to patch him up. The bullet has gone straight through, if we're lucky, and if it didn't hit anything major, it should actually be a fairly easy wound to heal." Mac was grinning widely, glancing at Dennis. Dennis nodded, expression still stony and grave. 

"Okay. Well, hopefully. Where can we wait?" His voice was flat, his shoulders dropping as the major wave of adrenaline began to leave his system. The nurse started walking in front of them, and they followed in a neat line like ducklings following their mother. They were led through the labyrinth of the hospital to a small, empty waiting room, a scattering of chairs and a coffee table covered in magazines in a barely decorated room. The nurse stopped at the door as the three of them stepped into the room, Dennis slumping into a chair right away as the others took in their minimal surroundings. 

"I don't know how complicated it is, so I can't tell you how long you'll be waiting." The nurse said. Mac shrugged. 

"That's okay. We'll just wait until he's alright." He looked at Dee for approval, and she nodded with a shrug. 

"Alright, I guess that's fine. He'll be going into theater right about now. If you want coffee there's a machine down the hall." The nurse closed the door and it was silent. 

The hours they waited in the featureless room felt like they existed outside of time. Dennis couldn't tell if he was drifting in and out of sleep or just dissociating handfuls of minutes away. Time skipped and jumped around them freely, as Dennis thought about the hole in Charlie's shoulder and the blood on his hands. At some point he gave Mac his jacket so he wasn't completely shirtless. Dee had found a spot in the corner and pulled out a hip flask, which Dennis hadn't had the capacity to mock her for. He wished he had a hip flask. There were periodic updates from a nurse's head stuck through the door, none of them much more than "he's not dead! keep waiting!", and Dennis began to get increasingly pissed off at the nurse's painted on enthusiasm. Did she not know that the three of them were processing a trauma? Could she not have some respect? He stopped himself lashing out, only because in the back of his head he knew getting kicked out of the hospital for attacking a nurse was only going to worsen the situation. And perhaps, a little bit, because he felt dizzy and exhausted, hunger pains sharp in his stomach. When a new face came through the door, he sat up in his chair, straightening his tired, sore shoulders. This guy had it right. His expression was serious but light, just the right amount of optimism in his eyes. He was holding a clipboard, and grey and silver stubble peppered his face. The rimless glasses resting on his nose were a perfect finishing touch. This was a medical professional, Dennis thought. The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose, looking down at the clipboard. 

"You're with Charlie Kelly, yes?" Oh, and he even had an accent? Dennis couldn't tell if he was just excited by how perfectly this guy fit his image of a doctor or if he was maybe getting a little turned on? But he reminded himself he was in a hospital because one of his best friends got shot and tugged himself back down to earth. Perhaps that accent - what was it, some European accent? Polish, maybe? - was sparking something inside him, but this was not the time. 

"Yeah, man, what's the news?" Mac answered from somewhere behind Dennis. 

"Okay, so…" The doctor looked over the clipboard, flipping a page as he hummed. "He came out of theater a while ago. Of course then we had to monitor him, yes? Make sure everything is stable, no problems. He soon will be waking up, and we can see how things are, hm?" He looked up at them, a tight smile on his face. Mac nodded with a smile, looking over at Dennis. 

"We can see him, then? Soon?" Dennis asked, voice measured. The doctor nodded. 

"About… twenty minutes? Let us see if he feels okay, then we come get you, okay?" Mac and Dennis both nodded, Dee shifting in the corner to throw out a drunken thumbs up. Dennis rolled his eyes, and the doctor left, and Dennis did not watch his ass as he went. The adrenaline was making him crazy. He turned to Mac, who was smiling widely, Dennis' jacket too small on his shirtless body, and he felt a little contented warmth in his belly. 

"He's okay, dude!" Mac said excitedly, throwing his arms wide. Dennis nodded, trying to maintain a nonchalant, composed energy. He still had to maintain control over this situation. Take responsibility, as the Alpha of the group. He waited for the doctor to come back without saying anything back. 

The room Charlie was in had a smell that was only ever present in hospitals. It was dim, the hum of some machine that a new nurse explained was just monitoring vitals filling the silence. Charlie blinked slowly at them, his eyes barely open. 

"Hey, man!" Mac said softly. Charlie's eyebrows slowly drifted into a frown, squinting at the three of them stood a couple feet away from the bed. 

"How you feeling?" Dee asked hesitantly. Charlie squinted at them all for a moment longer and then laughed.

"Hey, yo, I'm…" He cut himself off with laughter, weak and airy. "I am high as shit, dude…" He grinned, and Mac laughed, and it felt like everything went from black and white into color like they'd come over the other side of the rainbow and arrived into fuckin' munchkin land. Dennis stepped through the strange invisible barrier that had felt like it stopped him actually getting close to Charlie. He was next to him, now, Charlie propped up in the bed, drips in him, bandages round him, tubes in his nose, a million complicated medical things that Dennis felt he might fuck up by breathing on them too hard. He smiled. 

"I guess you're on a lot of painkillers, huh?" He said, crossing his arms, the smile on his face feeling unfamiliarly easy. Charlie looked like he did when he'd huffed a shit ton of gas and smoked as much weed as he could handle - eyes red and mostly closed, mouth wide in a wonky, goofy smile. It was a refreshing sight. Dennis realised the last time he saw Charlie's face it was twisted in pain as he pushed him away like a wounded animal, and that a certain tension in his gut had unfurled when he was able to replace that image with a smiling, breathing Charlie. 

He felt Mac step in close next to him, grinning at Charlie. 

"I knew you'd be okay, man! You weren't gonna go out that easy, right?" He laughed, and Dennis thought he looked like his face might split in half he was grinning so hard. Charlie smiled up at them vacantly as Dee leaned on the end of the bed. Yeah, he was high as hell. 

"Man. 'd I really get fuckin'... shot, dude? Like… like with a gun?" He moved his hand to itch his face and couldn't, because his shoulder was wrapped in bandages and cloth and it didn't move that way anymore. He looked down at his hand and huffed. 

"I mean, yeah, dude. It was pretty bad, bro." Mac's wide grin slipped a little and he scratched at his stubble uncomfortably. Charlie grumbled wordlessly, shifting in the bed. 

"I thought you were dead for a minute, man." Dee said matter of factly, Charlie struggling to focus on her stood at the other end of the bed. Dennis was pretty sure all the machines and the smell made her uncomfortable, and he kind of felt the same, but that didn't stop him feeling pissed off at her selfishness. He tried his hardest to ignore her presence and watched Charlie scrunch his face up like a sleepy toddler. 

"Unlike some people," Dennis couldn't quite keep the venom out of his voice but he dampened it for Charlie's sake, "Mac and I had the situation under control. We knew you'd be fine. Right, Mac?" He elbowed Mac, glancing at him. Mac nodded and tugged his mouth back into a smile. 

"Of course, bro! I mean, between my razor sharp reflexes and chiselled physique, and Dennis' smarts and… leadership qualities," He looked to Dennis for approval, and he nodded, so Mac continued, "I mean, we were never gonna let you, like… die!" He was reluctant to let the word come out of his mouth for some reason, like the possibility wasn't real until he spoke it out loud. But now it was out there and all of them were quiet. 

"Right." Dennis broke the silence. 

"Well, thanks, guys." Charlie said, looking up at them hazily. "I thought… to be honest, man, like, I dunno…" His voice was crackly and slurred, his mouth in an uneven smile. "Didn't think you'd save me, man!" He laughed, slightly too loud, a little bit hysterical, and laid his head back. All of them were silent with an odd, heavy guilt. 

"Who was that guy anyway?" Charlie asked, gazing up at Dennis again. Dennis chewed on his lip, looking down at his hands to try and decide whether to lie. As was often the case, Mac made a decision before he got the chance. 

"Shit, dude, I don't know, he, like… I mean, it's not like I let him get away, or anything, he just was really fast and I was distracted because… well, like, there was blood, and I fell over -" Dennis clapped his hand onto Mac's shoulder and cut him off. 

"He ran away, but we'll find him, right guys?" Suddenly, Dennis had a purpose. Something he could do to help Charlie. Mac looked like he was silently pleading with him but he nodded, and Dee shrugged. 

"Sure, I guess so. I mean… did either of you pick up his gun?" She asked, standing upright from where she'd been leaning on the end of the bed. Mac jumped with a gasp, making Dennis jump and stumble a little. 

"Oh, shit! The gun! Dude, I bet that has, like, serious DNA evidence on it!" He grabbed Dennis by the bicep excitedly, and Dennis raised a hand. 

"Woah, woah, okay, slow down there bud. It might, but did anyone lock the bar? He could have just… gone back for it." The excitement on Mac's face fell. 

"Shit, you're right." Mac looked over at Dee. "Dee, you gotta go check." Dee immediately groaned. 

"Me? Why do I have to do it?" 

"'cause me and Dennis need to stay here with Charlie! And it's your car, you are the one who always complains when we drive your car, Dee." 

"Because you always wreck it! Because you're idiots!" 

Dennis frowned at her, looked down at Charlie, and then back to her. Guilt was a powerful tool. She sighed, shoulders dropping. 

"Okay, fine. Yeah, I'll go back to the bar. I hate hospitals anyway. Stay, uh, healing, Charlie, yeah? Look after yourself, and everything." She disappeared out of the door of the room, and Dennis breathed a sigh of relief. Mac looked at him for direction, because Mac was only half a person without Dennis' help. They'd built a language of looks and eyebrow raises over the years. Mac's instinct, when something went wrong, was to look at Dennis. And Dennis was always right there, looking back at him, telling him what to do. Sometimes it was outright, barking instructions at Mac, and sometimes the way he shrugged told Mac enough. Right now, his eyes were closed, his face up to the ceiling. Overwhelmed. 

Mac pulled a chair from the side of the room up next to the bed, and prodded Dennis. He nodded to the chair and, with a huff, Dennis sat down. Mac hovered awkwardly next to him. 

"This sucks." He said, and his words hung in the silence as Dennis nodded tiredly. 

"Yeah. It does." He turned to Charlie, at eye level now he was sitting in the chair. "Y'know, Charlie, I dunno why you didn't think we'd save you, man. Give us some credit." Charlie shrugged, and from the hazy look in his eyes Mac was pretty sure he wasn't really taking any of this in. But that didn't matter, because Dennis was monologuing, not for Charlie - but for himself. Mac had seen it many times before. "Maybe we're all a little too mean, sometimes, alright? I get that. But, I mean, we wouldn't just…" Dennis was getting animated, even though Charlie's eyes were almost closed again at this point. "Look, we're like, a jenga tower, y'know? And you're down here, down at the bottom, and some people might think that's an insult, but it's the most important part." Dennis glanced at Mac with the same look Mac gave when he needed direction. Mac nodded, though he was frowning at Dennis' frenzied speech. "If someone kicks out the bottom of the tower the whole thing'll tumble. I mean, that's basic physics. And if someone kicks you out the bottom of our tower, we'll all go tumbling down." He sat back in his chair, having sat bolt upright as he spoke. Charlie looked like he might be asleep. "So we wouldn't just… let you die, man, I mean…" Dennis broke off in an airy laugh, though there was no emotion in his face. "And you'll be okay. The tower will rebuild. Right?" He looked to Mac. He looked so fucking tired, and childlike in his need for optimism, it shook Mac's faith in his words. But he nodded, and smiled, because he knew Dennis needed it. Charlie was snoring beside him. The machines hummed. 


	2. all the wrong things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a fairly short chapter about Dennis and Mac being emotionally repressed idiots and having a terrible time!  
> warnings for panic attacks and... typical Dennis style emotional suppression? plus dysfunctional yearning macdennis and Dennis eating disorder stuff. we have fun, huh?

Some time around 9th grade, Dennis had made a decision. Like most teenagers, his world had been turned upside down by emotional rollercoasters when he hit puberty, his life at the mercy of his feelings. Of course, "like most teenagers" was the thing Dennis aspired least to be. 

He had tried to decide on the pros and cons of feelings. Most of them, he discovered, were useless. They didn't gain him power, money, information, or insight, and many of them felt bad. When he was sad he felt pathetic and useless. Worry made him want to shrink into the corner and dissolve away. Happiness was brief and fleeting, and something always tainted it. Love was, frankly, disgusting, and he wanted nothing to do with it. The only emotion he could find a use for was anger. Anger was righteous, glorious, passionate. It made him feel strong, made people fear him. Gave him power. 

And so he made the executive decision that the only emotion he would feel from then on would be anger. If anything else was to bubble up, he would redirect it into righteous fury. A lot of walls got punched that year. 

Dennis had maintained this position for the best part of thirty years. Perhaps sometimes there was… a crack in the dam, but he would patch it back up soon enough. On occasion all the feelings he was stuffing down into the back of his psyche erupted into a hysterical, psychotic rage that scared even himself, but that had to be better than dealing with all those messy emotions every day. It just had to be. It was far too late for him to start feeling emotions that he had shoved down deep inside for decades without falling to bits, and falling to bits was absolutely out of the question. 

So why, then, was he crying hysterically on his bathroom floor? What, exactly, was that about? 

This didn't feel like rage. It didn't feel like any of the subsets of anger that he had grown to accept over the years - frustration, irritation, exasperation, hate… This, whatever it was, was sharp and biting, cutting into him without warning, drawing out sobs and uneven shaky breaths. Not only was he crying, he was sobbing. He felt like he was going to choke on his own breath. Crying like this was a horrible alien feeling, like a parasite in his body, racking him with painful, unbearable sobs. He wanted to claw it out of his chest, tear out the creature that was crushing his heart and constricting his lungs, but he couldn’t. All he could do was cry. The part of him that was worried about Mac hearing was drifting further and further away from the physical him, who was kneeling on the cold bathroom tiles in his boxers, hands still muddy with a thin layer of dried blood, snot and tears dripping onto the floor. He thought about watching Charlie get shot, and not moving a muscle, and he thought about watching the life slowly drain out of Charlie's face in the car as they drove to the hospital, and he thought about nights when he and Charlie and Mac would just get drunk or high and make each other laugh and how he couldn't fucking stand it if everything changed because Charlie's blood was all over the floor now

Someone was pounding on the bathroom door. Before it had registered as someone pounding on the bathroom door, it only served to heighten Dennis' hysteria, his sobbing and the banging and the shouting all melting together into one horrible soundscape. Now it drew him out of the foggy chaos inside his head, and he quieted his sobs as he listened. 

Of course it was Mac. 

"Please, Dennis, I'm right here, man, whatever is going on in there…" It sounded like maybe he'd been yelling at Dennis for a while. Was that guilt that panged in his chest? What the fuck was happening? He took a sharp, gasping breath. It hurt to try and control his breathing, stop this hurricane of emotion that had hit all of a sudden. Mac tapped on the door. 

"Buddy? Dennis? Just talk to me?" 

Dennis cleared his throat, and then again, because it felt like his throat was filled with pond slime and motor oil. 

"I'm fine." He said, and if he had to rate how believable that statement was, he'd probably give it a 2/10. Even by his standards, it was rough. His voice sounded like shit, snotty and nasally, his breath shaky - he sounded like a man who had literally just finished full body sobbing. Perhaps, right this moment, his acting skills weren't at their height. 

"Can I come in?" Mac asked after a considerable silence. Dennis turned to face the door. Fuck, what did he have to lose? He stood up and unlocked the door, then pulled it open. Mac near enough fell into the bathroom, the door falling away from where he was leaning on it. He steadied himself and focused on Dennis. 

"Jesus, dude…" He said softly, almost involuntarily, and he saw the muscles in Dennis' face twitch, his breath catch. He grabbed Dennis in a tight hug, holding him to his chest, and Dennis sobbed desperately into his shirt as he gripped him. He clung to Mac, to the shirt he'd thrown on when they walked into the apartment, digging his fingers into warm firm muscle, feeling Mac's arms squeezing his shoulders tight. He felt horribly small, and fragile, face pressed into Mac's chest, his own chest tight and painful with the sobbing. 

Mac wasn't sure how to process… any of this. The whole day. Hearing Dennis screaming in the bathroom, trying not to think about what the panic in his chest was afraid of, and his shirt, now, damp between his chest and Dennis' face. He didn't know how to make sense of Dennis clawing at his shoulders like he was scared to let go, or the sobbing, or how damn sharp and bony and small Dennis felt in his grip. He hushed Dennis quietly, holding him tight against his chest, feeling like he was having a horrible nightmare. Maybe he was, but usually even in his dreams Dennis was in control. And he sure felt real, warm and clammy and shaking in his arms. Mac said the only thing he could think of to say. 

"It's okay." 

It wasn't the right thing to say. Dennis pulled away and he let go of him, letting him stumble backwards. His eyes were red and full of tears, but still piercing, his gaze still like a knife to Mac's throat. 

"No it fucking isn't!" Dennis cried, sounding incredulous. He almost spat his words at Mac, some strange hysterical rage in his voice. 

This was a version of Dennis that Mac had never met before, and that was fucking terrifying. Dennis was less one whole cohesive person and more of a collection of personas. If Mac was the kind of person to analyze that shit, maybe he'd think about how Dennis seemed to have no solid sense of identity beyond being in charge, and seemed to morph and warp his own personality in order to maintain his position of control. How he could pick up another person's behaviours and twist himself to fit the mold they liked best so he could get what he wanted. But he didn't think about that. Instead he just tried to learn what each different version of Dennis was like. How he should talk to them, and how they would respond. Some versions of Dennis were easy going and fun to be around; would laugh at his jokes and pass him a beer with a smile. Others were mean, vindictive, and frightening. Most of them, Mac knew how to deal with - even if that meant accepting a tirade of insults for the greater good. 

This version of Dennis was new. New in a huge, terrifying way. He looked like a different person, all shaky and hollowed out, his eyes all swollen and red and wet with tears. This Dennis was like a wild animal caught in a barbed wire fence. Hysterical, frantic, desperate to get away, but stuck. Thrashing wildly away from anything or anyone that tries to help, driving the barbs deeper into its stomach. Mac didn't know what to do. 

"I'm sorry." He said, soft and sincere, not even really meaning to say it out loud. But there was nothing else he could say. Dennis was looking at him like a child lost in a foreign city, wide eyed and panicked. He dropped his head and ran his hands through his hair. 

"I don't know what's going on." Dennis said, his voice thick with confusion and lingering hysteria. It felt like his chest was going to burst open, Alien style, except his heart would be the thing that flew out and landed on the floor. He squeezed his eyes shut, hands grasping his own head as if he needed to hold his skull together. Mac stepped into his personal space, putting a hand on his arm, and he almost flinched away, but the firm grip was grounding and warm. Like Mac was holding him down, stopping him from floating away through the ceiling. 

"Okay, everything's not okay. Obviously. I didn't mean that. I just mean… you won't feel like this forever, right, bro? Like, y'know… things will go back to normal. Charlie'll be fine, and we'll find that guy and get our own back, man!" Mac's forced optimism made Dennis want to strangle him, but he resisted that urge. Instead he took a few long, deep breaths, eyes still closed, dropping his arms to his sides. As the overwhelming panic started to settle into a dull, constant anxiety, his hysteria seemed more and more absurd. Every second that passed he was filled with more shame, because he was standing in his bathroom in only his underwear, nose still stuffy with snot from crying, his roommate's hand on his arm. He turned away from Mac and towards the shower. 

"Okay. I'm having a shower. Can you go?" He spoke quickly, bluntly, his back turned to Mac. As Dennis pulled off his socks, Mac backed out of the bathroom. 

"Yeah. Sorry, Dennis." He felt as mixed up as the moments after he realized Charlie had been shot. He wished he could rewind 5 minutes and do something differently, something that would mean he was holding Dennis and comforting him until he fell asleep against his chest. His idolisation of Dennis didn't quite let him believe that maybe the problem wasn't him. That maybe the problem was that Dennis had spent decades pointedly ignoring every emotion that threatened his view of the world and himself, and now, no matter what Mac said, he would push him as far away as possible to avoid having to truly confront what he was feeling. No. No, Mac had to believe there was something he could have done differently. He walked to his bedroom, dragging his feet, feeling the swell of emotion in his chest. He desperately wanted to be feeling this alongside Dennis, to comfort himself by comforting him, and that only made it worse. Instead he felt horribly alone as he closed his bedroom door and stood in the dim evening light that was coming through his window. The tears started flowing before he got to his bed, burying his face in his pillow to muffle his childlike sobs. Unlike Dennis, he had experience of hysterical crying alone in his bedroom. He slithered under his covers and let himself cry without giving too much thought to the mess of feelings inside him. He cried until he was too tired to keep it up any longer, and his eyes willed themselves shut, and his shuddery uneven breaths turned to slow, gentle snores. It was not a restful sleep. 

Dennis’ shower was similarly unpeaceful. He turned the water up so hot it stung as it hit his skin, focusing on the burning and the delicate shade of pink he was turning as the room filled with steam. He kept catching himself staring blankly at the wall tiles, the gentle rumble of the shower fading into background noise as his mind drifted away from him. The horrible tsunami wave of feelings would rise back up in his chest until he stuck his face under the water and felt his cheeks burning and resolutely didn’t think about the dizzying shame and guilt and fear that threatened to flood him. 

It was awful. 

He stepped out of the shower when he started to feel lightheaded, the heat and all the feelings and his blood pressure attacking from all sides. A ringing started quietly in his ears and quickly grew louder as he stepped onto the bathmat and grabbed a towel. His limbs moved robotically, all his mental faculties going towards not falling to the ground. The ringing in his ears was like someone had just struck a cymbal next to his head, and white crept into the corners of his vision as he wrapped the towel around his shoulders, his body numb and distant. 

He sunk down to the floor like his legs had melted. His ass hit the floor painfully, his tailbone slamming into the tiles as his feet slid out from under him. As he sat there, dazed, his head hanging down towards his chest, the ringing in his ears faded to a quiet hum. The shower was still running. He didn't move, because he could feel a horrible hollow sickness in his stomach, and his legs were wobbly and weak. He hadn't passed out, exactly. Just… sat down, very suddenly. Somewhat unwillingly. He took deep, measured breaths as he dried off his chest with the towel. When the hum in his ears was gone, he pushed himself up off the ground and turned off the shower. It seemed eerily quiet without the rumble of water hitting porcelain. He pulled the towel tightly around his waist and left the bathroom, walking to his bedroom in a daze. He got dressed in a daze, too, pulling on boxers and sweatpants without even noticing, and suddenly he was in bed. It felt odd that, in the same day, he could both feel his friend's blood oozing through his fingers and slide under his perfectly folded sheets smelling of lavender and coconut. It seemed strange that he could be both of those people. Even stranger that he was also the person who had, however briefly, sobbed into Mac's chest and clung to him like a frightened kid. There were far too many things about himself that were confusing him today. It didn't bear thinking about. Not now. Lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, his body reminded him that he was tired. The adrenaline from earlier in the day had drained him, and now he felt like he could sleep for a few days straight. But every time he closed his eyes, he started fucking thinking again, and thinking was his worst fucking enemy right now. One step down the wrong path and he'd be feeling all that guilt, and fear, and shame, and longing - it was too much all at once. He grabbed his phone and threw on a random playlist. With the phone by his head, he curled up on his side, clutching a pillow, paying full attention to the music. Nothing else. Just the music. 

His exhausted body took the cue, and he was asleep before he got past the third song. 

**Author's Note:**

> there's more coming whether you want it or not, we're on national lockdown man what else am I gonna do


End file.
